It is another deal for Science Exchange that comes in a pack: Breakout Labs, a science-oriented investing shop within billionaire Peter Thiel’s Thiel Foundation, has signed the outsourcing R&D marketplace for its portfolio companies.
Under the strategic partnership, Science Exchange will provide those scientist-entrepreneurs access to instant research services from a network of over 2,500 prequalified CROs, academic labs and government facilities. Like what it offers to other such collective customers, Science Exchange will also help identify the best providers based on each Breakout company’s R&D needs.
“Our companies are at the forefront of radical scientific breakthroughs,” said Hemai Parthasarathy, scientific director of Breakout Labs, in a statement. “Science Exchange’s marketplace helps these companies adopt virtualization in their R&D process and give them an opportunity to access external resources they need to bring their innovations to market. Science Exchange ultimately removes barriers for startups to access scientific services that will help accelerate their discoveries.”
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As part of the Thiel Foundation, Breakout Labs has backed over 30 companies working in technology, biology, materials and energy since it handed out the first round of grants in 2012.
Seattle-based Immusoft, one of the first to receive grants of up to $350,000, develops a gene therapy platform called Immune System Programming, which delivers DNA encoding therapeutic proteins into patients’ immune cells. It closed a $2.7 million series A3 funding last November.
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Cortexyme, a company that received Breakout’s support in 2014, is developing novel treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, based on the idea that such diseases are caused by bacteria infections. The biotech’s current investors include Pfizer and Takeda Ventures.
Breakout Labs is the latest life science incubator to have chosen Science Exchange’s platform to help manage outsourced R&D services for their startups. Some recent examples include that with IndieBio and the University of California’s QB3.